Speak the Culture: Italy by Andrew Whittaker

Speak the Culture: Italy by Andrew Whittaker

Speak the Culture: Italy offers a rich and engaging insight into the events, people and movements that have shaped Italy and the Italians. A guidebook can show you where to go, a phrase-book what to say, but only Speak the Culture: Italy will lead you to the nation's soul.

The Italian character is complex, contradictory, alluring and infinitely variable: heirs to the greatest empire of the ancient world but almost ungovernable; cradle of western civilization as well as the Mafia; maestros of modern design, mired in old-fashioned bureaucracy; epicentre of the Catholic Church and exemplars of la dolce vita.

Where do you start? Giotto? Caravaggio? Murky Etruscan tombs or the mighty Roman Pantheon?

Speak the Culture: Italy sifts through a sprawling 3,000 year saga and makes sense of it, dissecting architecture, music, food, art, literature, cinema, family and much more.

Culture is covered in its broadest sense, extending into every aspect of Italian life--food and drink, religion, politics, sport, manners, character and so on. While the Italian peninsula has its ancient history, it's been a unified nation for less than 150 years. Lo Stivale, or the famous Boot, is young: the nuances of strong, surviving regional identities are important and revealed.

Taken as a whole, Speak the Culture: Italy gives you an insight into what it means to be Italian, but it's also a book to dip into, to learn, for instance, about Giuseppe Verdi, Sophia Loren or Umberto Eco. Easily read and beautifully illustrated, this, the fourth in the Speak the Cultureseries, offers an intimate understanding of Italian life and culture for new residents, second home-owners, holidaymakers, business travelers, students and lovers of Italy everywhere.

Whittaker, Andrew: - Andrew Whittaker is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at London South Bank University. He has taught nursing students since the early-nineties and teaches research skills to undergraduate and postgraduate students. He has worked in adult and child mental health and was the director of a mental health voluntary organization.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781854186287
ISBN 10	1854186280
Title	Speak the Culture: Italy
Author	Andrew Whittaker
Series	Travel Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Thorogood
Year published	2010-02-12
Number of pages	340
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.